apparent failure- actual victory

When I was a kid I had an incident that made me never want to give anything my all. I still battle this. It's hard to do your best and flat out FAIL! But is that failure. NOPE !
I was a pole vaulter a million years ago. The vault is an event that ALWAYS ENDS IN FAILURE. You vault until you've knocked down the bar at a certain height three times(very trinitarian).
Vaulting taught me that some failure is just victory in disguise. Failure in some cases comes from outside of us. We do our best and sometimes our environment will not permit us to thrive and achieve like we believe we can . Looks like failure - it's not. The victory is there if you have allowed God to make you better by it and thru it.
I wear a crucifix (I know many of you don't think Jesus should still be on the cross- fine ) because it speaks to the the greatest apparent failure in history - What looked like failure is victory for all of us.

Christ is victorious and thru him so are we!